Every woman has a best friend. One who has seen her through dodgy perms, fake tan dilemmas and pregnancy scares? A good mate has seen you through your very worst days and been witness to your finest moments.
My mate Monica is that person. She lives in London, has a really demanding job, she owns her own PR Company. Her life is a constant whirl of TV studios, book launches and nibbling niceties in upmarket eateries.
Monica is PR to some of the most famous and celebrated chefs and restaurants here in the UK and abroad.
We met up in London for a drink recently and invited some friends to join us.
“Remember the time you peed yourself outside The Groucho club?” she laughed and everyone at our small gathering stared at me in horror. Monica has a way of picking out the highlights of any anecdote, that’s why she is good at her job, except this time, she wasn’t doing my image any favours.
“Tell the whole story properly, it makes sense if you explain it better” I shouted as the people in the room stayed silent and continued to stare at me. I will be forever known as the weak bladder woman in their eyes.
Ten years ago when she was working as a lawyer’s assistant in London and I was an open spot who crashed on her couch doing the comedy circuit, we had the best of times. Running from comedy gig to late night bars, were amongst some of the best days in our lasting friendship.
Both of us were way too old to be still ‘working out what we want to do’. I was in my mid thirties, married with a child and had decided to become a stand up comic, rather late in the day to be honest and she was in her early thirties and had been through a succession of jobs and ill fitting boyfriends.
That particular night, I had been heading to a gig in Soho; my bladder was full and grew to the size of a small scatter cushion, I thought that if I can hold in a baby I was sure I could hold in a wee.
Monica and I started walking along Dean Street, when for some bizarre reason we both spotted a tiny hobbling baby mouse running past our legs at the exact same time. We screamed and screamed much in the same way we would if the devil himself had decided to chase our skirt tails. It was a tiny wee creature, but we got hysterical. Flapping hands and squealing like banshees.
People stared, yet we screamed more.
Then we stopped the screeching and started laughing, at that point Monica was throwing her head back howling with raucous laughter and then she suddenly stopped, stared at me with huge bulging eyes and vomited up a great splash of yellow sick all over the pavement.
It was the sudden change from laughter to puke that made me fall about laughing, I could not contain myself, my ribs hurt, and I peed myself. I am not proud of it, but I did. The piss soaked my jeans and ran into my shoes.
We then headed onto my comedy gig, we had no time to stop and get cleaned up. There was me with a damp urine soaked crotch and Monica with yellow sick all tangled up in her long red curly hair.
The bits of vomit hung onto the tendrils like ugly Christmas tree ornaments. We stank badly, but still kept laughing, people were looking at us both. We must have looked a sight. That never stopped us from giggling.
I did the gig, told the story of what had just happened, showed the audience my dark stained jeans, pointed out Monica’s vomit splattered hair and left the stage to a resounding applause.
Who needs material when you can actually say in all honestly “Something happened on the way to the gig”
Friends can come through the toughest of times, especially if one of them have pissed themselves in public and the other can recall the story in front of strangers.
